1993 – 2020 171 cm Liver chestnut

Don Schufro is out of Fiesta, whose full-sister, Fantasia, when bred to Donnerhall produced the stallion, Don Primero, an FEI competitor with Karin Rehbein. Don Schufro’s full-sister Fantastica is the dam of the Sandro Hit son, Sonny Boy. Another full-sister to Don Schufro, was the Champion Mare at the 2003 Elite Oldenburg Broodmare Show in Rastede.

Don Schufro easily topped the dressage section of his Stallion Performance test at Adelheidsdorf with a score of 154.93 – alas a typical Donnerhall jumping score of 91.80, meant that he only finished second overall.

A Bundeschampionate finalist, Don Schufro moved quickly through the ranks to Grand Prix level. Ridden by Andreas Helgstrand, he placed at Aachen, Nörten-Hardenberg, Wiesbaden and Lingen. The pair were second in the Danish Championships in 2004 and selected for the Athens Olympic Games. In 2007, the pair were second in the Grand Prix in Neumünster and in the World Cup freestyle qualifier.

Don Schufro’s Schufro’s rider, Andreas Helgstrand was impressed with his progeny when I interviewed him in 2004:

“I have not seen a stallion who makes foals better than he can. He is really going up as a competition horse now, and his sons and daughters, they are very easy to ride, they have nice hind legs – and that is very important in dressage, that you have the hind legs with you. All of them have a super canter. I think he is one of the best breeding stallions at the moment.”

You have some very good stallions at Blue Hors?

“I must say my best horse ever is a son from Don Schufro, Don Romantic, he won the licensing as a four year old, and that horse is now six. But he has some problems with the nerves in his neck, when he bends to the right there is nothing, but there is a problem bending to the left. They can’t find out what is wrong. We hope to fix it because I have never seen a horse like that before. We have had him to Newmarket, to everywhere. He didn’t always have this problem so hopefully we can fix it. Don Schufro is good, but that horse is amazing, an unbelievable horse.”

Don Schufro’s son Diamond Hit was Reserve Champion in the Four Year old stallion class at the Bundeschampionate in 2001, and the following year, was Reserve World Champion of the Five Year old dressage horses. In 2007, Diamond Hit went on to be a most impressive Grand Prix competitor, with Emma Hindle.

Other licensed sons include: Der Dollar, Don Caruso, Don Darwin, Don Laurie I and II as well as Don Romantic, who won the Danish stallion licensing in 2002.

In 2001, Don Schufro headed the German FN stallion rankings for the first time, on the 2013 standings, he was still number 1 with a breeding value of 169. On the 2014 FN standings he dropped to 3rd spot (behind Lissaro and Vivaldi!!!) with a breeding value of 172.

Don Schufro ranked 9th on the 2014 WBFSH stallion rankings, with his most successful competitor, Bocelli. On the 2015 standings, he is in 11th place, with 13 points earners but with Weihegold having already won her first World Cup qualifier at the beginning of 2016 his star was certain to rise, and sure enough he regained 9th place on the 2016 rankings. On the 2017 WBFSH standings, he has dropped from 9th to 10th. He has dropped out of the top 50 on the 2020 rankings.

Weihegold and Isabel Werth

The 2021 Hanoverian Stallion book, records 252 competitors with winnings of €1,113,911, with 56 competing at S level – 24 at 2*, 14 at 3*, eight at 4* and one at 5*. He is the sire of five horses that have won more than €10,000. Weihegold is on a massive €792,301 – the next best, Don Darwin with €44,470.

His 2020 FN breeding value as a sire of young dressage horses is 148, but on the highest value achieved values, he scoping a whopping 201! On the 2021 Hanoverian values he scores 144 for dressage which puts him number one on the Hanoverian topliste. A slightly negative 96 for type, but 121 for conformation, and 146 for correctness of limbs.

After he died, it was revealed that he was a WFFS carrier – luckily for the breeding of dressage horses, facebook was not a key player in stallion selection while he was a breeding stallion.

Looking at the strike rate of the top stallions on the 2020 WBFSH dressage sire rankings, we see the importance of Don Schufro. Gemma calculated the percentage of their total offspring who make it to Prix St George level plus, and Grand Prix – this when taken in conjunction with the overall rankings gives us the most comprehensive picture of reliability. Before people start jumping up and down and complaining that there should be concessions made for whether or not progeny are competition age or not etc etc – look, we know, no ranking is perfect however when applied uniformly across the stallions it provides us with a pretty handy means of comparison.  Leading our strike-rate rankings for both PSG+ and Grand Prix competitors is Don Schufro; 14.0% of his offspring have competed up to the Prix St George level or higher, and 5.0% of his offspring have made it all the way to Grand Prix. Rounding out the top five are Sandro Hit (4.3% / 13.0%), Jazz (4.2% / 12.0%), De Niro (3.8% / 8.5%) and Quaterback (3.5% / 10.5%).